INTERESTING WORD ORIGINS: Helping to Fix the Meaning of the Word in Your Mind

INTERESTING WORD ORIGINS: Helping to Fix the Meaning of the Word in Your Mind
1. laconic: adj. (of a person, speech, or style of writing) using very few words, concise, terse: his laconic reply suggested a lack of interest in the topic
ORIGIN: derived from the name of a place Laconia, Sparta whose inhabitants (the Spartans) were men of action and few words.
2. odyssey: noun (pl. odysseys) a long and eventful journey or experience: his odyssey from military man to politician
ORIGIN: From Iliad and Odyssey, both Greek epic poems, traditionally ascribed to Homer. Iliad describes how Achilles killed Hector at the climax of the Trojan War. Odyssey describes the travels of Odysseus during years of wandering after the Trojan War. He eventually returned home to Ithaca and killed the suitors who had plagued his wife Penelope during his absence.
3. quixotic: adj. extremely idealistic; unrealistic and impractical: a vast and perhaps quixotic project
ORIGIN: From Don Quixote the hero of a romance (1605-15) by Cervantes, a satirical account of chivalric beliefs and conduct. The character of Don Quixote is typified by a romantic vision and naïve, unworldly idealism.
4. decimate: verb [with obj.] core sense: kill, destroy, or remove a large proportion of (something): the inhabitants of that country have been decimated
sub sense: drastically reduce the strength or effectiveness of (something): public transport has been decimated
ORIGIN: Historically, the meaning of the word decimate is ‘kill one in every ten of (a group of people, originally a mutinous Roman legion) as punishment for the whole group. This sense has been more or less totally superseded by the more general sense given above.
5. cynical: adj. believing that people are motivated purely by self-interest; distrustful of human sincerity or integrity; marked by an attitude of pessimistic disillusionment, especially about people’s hidden ulterior motives: he was brutally cynical and hardened to every sob story under the sun
ORIGIN: From an early Greek school of philosophy Cynicism founded by Antisthenes, a disciple of Socrates. The name is related to the Greek kyon for dog. The early Cynics advocated a simple and austere life and that nothing natural was shameful; and declared kinship with all living creatures. They lived on the streets and in the open sharing food and abode with street dogs. Hence its derivation from the Greek word for dog.
6. swashbuckling: adj. engaging in daring and romantic adventures with bravado or flamboyance: the pirates of the Caribbean are a crew of swashbuckling buccaneers
ORIGIN: From swash (in the sense ‘make a noise like swords clashing or beating on shields’) + buckler (a small round shield held by a handle or worn on the forearm).